Russia and China vetoed a UN Security Council draft resolution on Thursday that would have extended for another year the mandate of a panel of experts monitoring sanctions imposed on Iran.
The US-drafted text received 11 votes in favour, two abstentions, including Pakistan, and two against.
Vasily Nebenzya, Moscow's UN envoy, argued that the draft resolution “was deeply flawed and did not have any legal basis".
“We strongly urged the authors to refrain from promoting such a draft; it was clear that the only thing that such a stubborn imposition of such products could lead to would be an increased growth in tensions within the Security Council, both on political and procedural grounds,” he said.
“Nonetheless, Washington decided to opt for confrontation and put the draft to a vote.”
The vote exposed deep divisions on the 15-member council over whether sanctions imposed by the UN on Iran remain in force following a dispute over the use of the “snapback” mechanism contained in the 2015 nuclear deal.
Britain, France and Germany triggered the mechanism in August last year, arguing that Iran had failed to meet its commitments under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The move was intended to restore UN sanctions that had been suspended under the agreement and Security Council Resolution 2231.
Russia and China have rejected the legal and procedural validity of the move. They argue that the sanctions were permanently lifted when Resolution 2231 reached its scheduled termination date on October 18, 2025.
After the vote, the US accused Russia and China of seeking to prevent independent scrutiny of sanctions violations, saying the veto would leave a gap in monitoring Iran.
“We are not surprised by the actions of several council members in vetoing the extension of the mandate of the panel of experts,” the US representative, Jennifer Locetta, said, arguing that the panel would have “shined the light” on prohibited defence co-operation between Iran and its partners.
Ms Locetta said the veto was part of a broader effort to block or weaken expert panels whose reporting could implicate council members or their partners in sanctions violations, pointing to difficulties involving panels monitoring Yemen and the Central African Republic, as well as the termination of expert panels for Mali and North Korea.
“Without an independent panel of experts, this council loses its principal source of impartial, evidence-based reporting on sanctions violations, creating a monitoring gap that only benefits the Iranian regime and those who profit from evading those measures,” the representative said.
Britain also criticised the vetoes, accusing Russia and China of shielding Iran and weakening the Security Council's ability to monitor sanctions. Ambassador Sarah MacIntosh compared the move with Russia's March 2024 veto of the mandate of the panel monitoring sanctions on North Korea, which ended 14 years of UN expert monitoring.
She also accused Russia of assisting sanctions evasion by Iran and North Korea, and of receiving Iran-designed Shahed drones and North Korean ballistic missiles for its war in Ukraine. But she said the veto did not affect the sanctions themselves.
“Sanctions against Iranian proliferation remain fully in force, binding on each and every UN member state,” she noted.
The disagreement has effectively paralysed the sanctions committee. More than nine months into 2026, council members have not yet agreed on the allocation of subsidiary body chairs, leaving the Iran committee without a head and unable to conduct any work.
China and Russia also rejected eight candidates proposed by the UN Secretariat in April to serve on the expert panel, according to diplomats.
With the panel yet to be reconstituted, the International Atomic Energy Agency remains the principal independent body reporting on Iran's nuclear programme, though it has also faced difficulties carrying out monitoring and verification activities.
The IAEA's 35-nation Board of Governors adopted a resolution on September 10 calling on Iran to remedy what it described as non-compliance with its safeguards obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The resolution also asked IAEA director general Rafael Grossi to report the matter to the Security Council and the UN General Assembly, the first such referral by the board in 20 years.
